Government must act urgently to save our rivers; proposed water quality targets represent a ‘death sentence’ for the River Wye

Join us in responding to major Government consultations to call for urgent action to save our rivers!

Read on to find out how you can help…

 

The crisis facing our rivers cannot be overstated: we are heading into yet another summer with every river in the country failing to meet basic environmental standards and some, such as the River Wye, facing imminent ecological collapse.

Our wildlife is disappearing, our rivers are not fit to swim in, and government and regulators so far appear to have been unable to get to grips with the scale of this crisis.

We simply cannot afford any rolling back of the already meagre protections and incentives we have for our rivers. Instead, we need Government to step up and strengthen these.

Additionally, our rivers only have any hope of survival if we can address the agricultural pollution crisis and transition to more sustainable and regenerative farming practices. While these are challenging times for the farming and food industry, we cannot afford to delay action further. We need Government to recognise that the food system is broken and to support solutions that help both people and nature, rather than taking a short-term approach and trading off the two: reducing the country’s dependence on imported inorganic fertilisers and increasing nutrient recycling through the wise use of manures and wastes would both bring costs down for farmers and also save our rivers.

 

As the situation becomes increasingly desperate, River Action is responding to two major Government consultations to share our views and call for action – and we’re calling on you to have your say too! The Nature Recovery consultation closes this Wednesday (11th May) and the Environment Act consultation on Monday 27th June so please make sure you have submitted your responses by then.

 

You can find River Action’s response to the consultation on the  Government’s Nature Recovery Green Paper here and you can respond to the consultation until Wednesday 11th May here.

You can find River Action’s response to the consultation on new legally-binding water quality targets under the Environment Act here and you can respond to the consultation until Monday 27th June here.

Please feel free to use any or all of our answers in formulating your response – and do get in touch if you have any questions at all or need any further information!

The scandal of Britain’s polluted rivers

By Charles Watson, Founder and Chairman, River Action.

As appeared in Weatherbys Hamilton bi-annual newsletter – The Specialist.

 

On January 5th the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee published its long-awaited report on Water Quality in Rivers. Over the previous twelve months this cross-party group of MPs had been taking evidence from a wide range of scientific, agricultural, corporate and environmental organisations, including my own campaigning group River Action.

The report’s findings were shocking. It’s 137 pages chronicle a devastating account of how in recent years our rivers have been allowed to sink into a scandalous state of environmental degradation. To quote from its executive summary:

 

” A ‘chemical cocktail’ of sewage, agricultural waste, and plastic is polluting the waters of many of the country’s rivers. Water companies appear to be dumping untreated or partially treated sewage in rivers on a regular basis… Farm slurry and fertiliser run off is choking rivers with damaging algal blooms… Not a single river in England has received a clean bill of health. “

House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report

How could this have happened?

I remember when much younger our watercourses were making a major ecological comeback. Great British rivers such as the Thames, Clyde and Tyne were showing huge progress in recovering from over a century of industrial abuse. For example, some might remember the momentous occasion in the 1980s when salmon were recorded finally returning to the Thames after an absence of 150 years.

However, in the last decade things have taken a horrendous turn for the worse. One of the direct consequences of the financial crisis of 2008 was the subsequent decade of austerity. The huge government debt incurred in saving our banking system was largely paid off by severe cuts to public services. Whether Health, Education or Defence, few government departments escaped the axe and one of the most significant casualties was Environmental Protection. Since 2011, the budget of England’s Environment Agency (EA) was cut by 75%, with similar cuts taking place in its equivalent statutory agencies in the devolved nations. As a direct consequence, environmental protection began to collapse. Essential services such as water quality monitoring were seriously scaled back. Meanwhile, the EA was also instructed by Government to re-direct much of its funding to the growing issue of flood defence. The biggest casualty of these cuts was enforcement. Prosecutions of polluters during this period collapsed by 95%, with the Agency simply not having the resources to take on major offenders in the courts.

So, polluters, be they under-invested water companies or cash-constrained farmers, had been able to save significant costs themselves by bypassing environmental regulations and discharging waste into rivers or onto the land, secure in the knowledge that they could do so with impunity.

The resulting statistics make dire reading. Data released on the 31st March this year showed that raw sewage was discharged into rivers and coastal areas for more than 2.7 million hours on more than 370,000 occasions throughout 2021, with many other discharges not being monitored. And only 14% of England’s rivers are officially considered now to be in “good” ecological health. Nowhere has the collapse of environmental protection been more harrowing than the story of the iconic River Wye. Britain’s fourth biggest watercourse is probably one of the most “protected” rivers in Europe. From its source in the Welsh mountains to its mouth in the Severn Estuary it flows through National Parks, Special Areas of Conservation, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest. But tragically over the last five years this magnificent river has spiralled downwards into an advanced state of ecological collapse.

 

Over the last three summers, the unthinkable happened. The Wye’s clear flowing water turned a noxious green following repeated and unprecedented algal blooms. Its pristine gravel beds, the spawning ground for England’s premier salmon river, became caked in thick algal slime. Meanwhile, the famous abundant ranunculus weed beds, which are so important to the river’s ecosystem, all but disappeared having been smothered from sunlight by this putrid opaque water.

The prime cause of this catastrophe can be found in the huge industrial sheds which have appeared across the river’s catchment over the last few years and which now house over 20 million intensively reared chickens.

Let’s not kid ourselves. This form of intensive agriculture is not farming. It is industrial manufacturing. Most of the chicken meat sold in fast food restaurants or from supermarket shelves is the output of a highly industrialised process which starts with the pumping of phosphate-rich animal feed into huge sheds containing up to 300,000 birds. Never seeing the light of day, they are fattened up for 3-4 months before slaughter, after which the manure they have produced is largely dumped onto surrounding agricultural land.

Chicken excrement contains four times the nutrient levels of that of humans, cows or pigs – and recent research by the University of Lancaster has concluded that the soils of the Wye Valley now contain three times average national phosphate levels. So, with the land unable to absorb this huge surplus of nutrients, they have nowhere to go when it rains other than down into the river, wreaking untold damage as they fuel the deadly algal blooms.

The fightback against the pollution crisis facing our rivers is however starting to build real momentum up and down the country. Volunteer citizen science groups have stepped in to fill the void left by our failing statutory agencies to conduct the essential evidence of monitoring of pollution levels. Meanwhile campaigners in every shape and form have mobilised. From local “friends” groups who have formed to protect a given river, to the repurposing of existing environmental organisations such as the Wildlife Trust Movement. Angling, rowing and kayaking clubs have become environmental campaigning bodies. As has the country’s booming wild swimming movement.

Into this dynamic community River Action was launched last February shortly after I had just stepped out of a 25-year career in the worlds of public relations, digital communications and advertising. Having just seen for myself the appalling state of the River Wye – unrecognisable from that pristine river I had fished in my 20s – I was resolved to repurpose skills originally learnt at the sharp end of the corporate sector into the world of environmental campaigning.

In our first year we have directly taken on the major agribusinesses whose toxic supply chains are a prime source of the problem. In February we published our “Plan to Save the Wye”. Strongly endorsed by dozens of other environmental NGOs, we are calling for urgent mitigations to be implemented, such as the export of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the Wye Valley’s chicken manure to those parts of the country, such as East Anglia, that actually import huge quantities of synthetically manufactured phosphate-based fertilisers. With fertiliser prices having rocketed due to the Ukrainian situation, this is the ultimate no-brainer.

In the months ahead we plan to take on the fundamental task of persuading our lawmakers to re-fund and re-empower environmental protection. If you care about the fate of our rivers, get involved! Join a local environmental group or become a volunteer citizen scientist – or make a donation to a campaigning body like River Action to help us escalate the reach and depth of our campaigning to save our precious rivers. It would be an unforgivable tragedy if an iconic British river such as the Wye has to be sacrificed before the government finally sits up and does something about the greatest environmental scandal of our time.

 

Download the article here – as appeared in Weatherbys Hamilton bi-annual newsletter, The Specialist.

River Action urges again a meeting with Rebecca Pow

On 3rd March 2022, River Action and over 20 NGOs, researchers and campaigners from the River Wye area sent a letter to Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow. The letter expressed our disappointment in the Minister’s visit to the River Wye. A visit which the Minister described as a “fact-finding mission”. And during which she failed to meet with representatives of the many local NGOs and citizen science groups that have been actively working towards resolving the pollution crisis on the Wye.

However, we have since received no response from the Minister. So, we have followed up with a second letter – urging again the Minister and other MPs to urgently implement our Plan to Save the Wye and to meet with thee group at the earliest opportunity to discuss necessary measures to tackle the river pollution crisis facing the River Wye.

Read the full letter here….River Action follow up to Minister Pow April 2022

River Action launches matchfunding crowdfunder

Fundraising to save Britain’s rivers from ecological collapse!

 

In support of Earth Day 2022, River Action has launched a new crowdfunder to save our rivers – which is being supported by a generous donor who is matchfunding every donation.

With the funds raised, we intend to launch a powerful nationwide campaign to call and put pressure on government to protect our rivers from the barrage of pollution destroying them.

Our target is £25kFor every £1 donated we have another donor who will match-fund your donation. So essentially your donation will be doubled! 

As always, thank you for your support.

 

Charles Watson, Chairman of River Action said,

 ‘The state of our rivers is a national disgrace, with many in severe ecological decline due to constant pressure from both sewage discharge and agricultural malpractice. We must act now to save them before it’s too late.’

 

Please support our crowdfunder by donating here.

Citizen Science: The power of the people for the protection of our planet

The recent emergence of the citizen science movement has impressed and inspired us all. Communities across the country have united to help fight for what matters most. Moreover, fight for what needs protecting most. Most relevant for the work of  River Action, volunteers have been dedicating their time to fighting the crisis of  river pollution. And this is why we wanted to help support them which led to our recent crowdfunder. In February 2022, we raised over £34k to support a number of volunteer groups working specifically in the Wye Valley. In this blog, we will bring some light to citizen scientists and highlight the important work they are doing. 

Who are these environmental superheroes? 

This is a good question. The reality is that citizen scientists could be you, me, from kids at school to their grandparents. In other words, hundreds of ordinary people from all walks of life can become an environmental hero. Further, citizen scientists participate on a voluntary basis – dedicating their spare time to this vital work. All for the love of collaboration, nature, and making a difference in the world.

Why the recent emergence?

Recent years have seen the near collapse of effective government-backed environmental law enforcement. This has been due to statutory environmental protection agencies budget cuts by government, both in Westminster and in the Devolved Nations. For example, England’s Environment Agency’s (EA) funding has been reduced in the last decade by 75% – leading to meaningful water quality monitoring almost ceasing. Consequently, and as part of this huge national scandal, citizen scientists have stepped in to do the job of the statutory environmental protection agencies. And becoming the eyes and ears for campaigning organisations such as River Action.  

And what do they do…?

Citizen scientists are the front-line fighters in the battle to reverse the environmental collapse of our rivers. Specifically the work they have been able to do in testing the levels of damaging nutrients in rivers. For example, nitrates and phosphates originating from sewage discharges and bad agricultural practices. As a result, providing concrete evidence to enable campaigners to identify polluters and seek the remedies needed to save our rivers.

What have citizen scientists been able to discover?

The research of citizen scientists is fundamental for providing organisations, such as River Action, with critical data to support  our campaigning to save the River Wye. The River Wye is one of the most ‘protected’ rivers in Europe. Special Areas of Conservation, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks line its banks from source to mouth. However, the EA’s and Natural Resources Wales’ record of identifying and remedying the river’s chronic pollution hasn’t been sufficient. 

Largely through the work of the citizen scientists have been able to better understand the full and horrific extent of phosphate pollution in the River Wye. In recent  years, the run off from manure from tens of millions of chickens from the region’s booming intensive poultry industry has wreaked untold damage to the ecology of this iconic British river.

How  will the funds raised by River Action be used?

Thanks to our supporters, we were delighted to have raised over £34k for the Wye valley’s  citizen scientists. These funds will secure the procurement of river pollution testing equipment for hundreds of volunteers. And, this should last for the rest of this year. Furthermore, we have also been able to fund Radnorshire Wildlife Trust to hire an analyst to administer the initiative. They will also collate and analyse the data compiled by various citizen scientist groups across the Wye catchment.

In brief, we owe a lot to the amazing citizen scientists of the world. Their tireless work has been a huge asset to  our ability to campaign against river pollution. 

 

Are you inspired? Why not join their ranks and become a Citizen Scientist yourself? 

River Action and Wye Catchment environmental groups call for meeting with Environment Minister

On February 10th 2022, Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow, visited the River Wye on a fact-finding mission to understand the ecological destruction being wreaked on this iconic river by largely unchecked pollution which has been attributed primarily to the region’s intensive poultry industry.

It was encouraging to see this expression of government interest in one of the country’s most pressing environmental crises, and to hear the minister confirm that improving water quality is a personal priority of hers.

However, it was also disappointing that the minister met primarily with the farming community & their representatives and government agencies, and not with representatives of the many local NGOs and citizen science groups that have been actively working towards resolving the pollution crisis on the Wye.

In an unprecedented move, over 20 of these groups (representing  all the major independent environmental groups that are active in the Wye catchment) have now joined together to write to Minister Pow, as well as to local MPs, to urge her to look beyond voluntary farmer-led initiatives and to support the implementation of the ambitious ‘Plan to Save the Wye’ recently outlined by River Action. The groups also urge the minister to meet with them at the earliest opportunity to discuss the issue further.

Read full text of the letter here…. River Action Letter to Minister Pow 07.03.2022

River Action raises £34,000 for Wye Valley citizen scientists

River Action announces today the completion of its crowdfunding campaign to secure funding for citizen science groups across the Wye catchment. A total of £34,000 was raised, which significantly exceeded the initial target of £20,000, with over 230 individual donors contributing.

The funds will secure the procurement of vital river pollution testing equipment for hundreds of volunteers for the rest of this year. Radnorshire Wildlife Trust will also use the funds to hire an analyst to administer the initiative and to assist in the collation and analysis of the data compiled by various citizen scientist groups across the catchment.

According to the recent report from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, “a chemical cocktail of sewage, agricultural waste, plastic and chemicals is polluting rivers. Only 14% of all the rivers in England can currently claim to have good ecological status”. A similar situation prevails in Wales with research published by Natural Resources Wales showing that over 60% of the River Wye is failing to meet pollution targets. Volunteer citizen scientists state they are able to research and monitor the river more frequently and with wider coverage than regulator agencies. Campaigners say environmental regulators are not giving a full and timely account of the decline due to the budget cuts these agencies have seen over the past decade.

The Wye catchment citizen science groups who will benefit from the fundraising include:

 

Charles Watson, Chairman of River Action said:

“Without our volunteer citizen scientists, we would have no means of quantifying the appalling levels of pollution that are impacting our rivers. Every day they are fighting against the daily abuse our rivers face, stepping into the gap left by our defunded statutory environmental protection agencies, whose monitoring and testing capabilities seem to have largely collapsed. We hope this will be the first of many acts of support from River Action for the UK’s Citizen Science movement”.

James Hitchcock CEO of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust said: 

“We are delighted that River Action’s crowdfunder has been so successful.  Radnorshire Wildlife Trust has supported the inspiring efforts of citizen scientist groups in the Wye catchment since their creation. Their rapid growth has highlighted just how much the condition of our rivers matters to local people. Only through their good, regular data, spread across the catchment, can we guide landowner advice, enforcement and practical solutions to improve the state of our rivers – such as the creation of riparian buffer strips and woodland”. 

Tom Tibbits, Chair of Friends of the Upper Wye (FOUW) said:

“Friends of the Upper Wye has blossomed in 18 months from a group of concerned citizens to the catchment’s leading volunteer network with over one hundred test sites being monitored regularly. This extraordinarily successful crowdfunder will enable us to expand our outreach by 50% to 150 sites and the newly funded  administrative support for our volunteers will be game-changing. We are so grateful for all the support FOUW has received from all its partners in achieving so much in such a short time, in particular Radnorshire Wildlife Trust and River Action.”

Christine Hugh-Jones of the Campaign for Rural Wales (Brecon and Radnorshire) and the Friends of the Lugg said: 

“We are just thrilled by River Action’s hugely successful crowdfunding appeal which exceeded our wildest dreams. Now we can re-equip and expand our local citizen scientist volunteers for our unique collaborative project covering the whole Wye catchment.  A special thank you to every generous donor!”

River Action launches its Plan to Save the Wye

River Action launches an urgent public call for a new ‘Plan To Save The Wye’.

The very recent rapid ecological collapse of the Wye and its tributaries has been widely linked to the rapid growth of the intensive poultry industry across the river catchment. It is estimated that in the last five years the number of chickens being reared in intensive livestock production units in the Wye catchment has doubled to over 20 million birds.

According to evidence submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) by Lancaster University’s RePhoKUs Unit, this has resulted in the Wye’s soils now carrying an unacceptable surplus 60% higher than the national average phosphate (P) levels. The prime cause of this was cited to be the hundreds of thousands of tons of chicken manure that is spread each year across the catchment, adding to the existing burden of manure already produced by sheep and cattle. With much of the resulting nutrients  ultimately running off into watercourses, the EAC concluded in its report on Water Quality in Rivers (published on January 13th) that “Intensive livestock and poultry farming appears to be putting enormous pressure on particular catchments, such as those feeding the river Wye”.  The river’s recent nutrient fed-annual algal blooms are now estimated to have killed 95% of the rivers previously abundant water-crowfoot vegetation.

Today’s call from River Action states that in order to save the river and its tributaries from irreversible environmental damage caused by these intensive agricultural practices, a mandatory catchment-wide Nutrient Management Plan must be implemented with immediate effect.

River Action states that the new plan must be enforced on a catchment-wide basis with the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales working in close cross-border collaboration and that, as a minimum, the key actions of the plan must comprise:

  1. A planning moratorium on the construction of new (or expansion of existing) intensive livestock production units (poultry, pigs and Bovine), and on the construction of any new anaerobic digestors (ADs) unless their digestate outputs are nutrient-neutral.
  2. A requirement for all Intensive Poultry Units (IPUs) within the Wye catchment to have approved by the end of 2022 a Manure Management Plan (MMP), to be fully implemented by the end of 2023, whereby all chicken litter is exported out of the catchment to those locations in the UK which have P deficits, and thus currently rely on imported synthetic phosphate fertilisers.
  3. A requirement for all free-range egg producing IPUs to have a Nutrient Runoff Mitigation Plan (NRMP) approved by the end of 2022, to be implemented by the end of 2023, whereby water courses are protected from nutrient run-off from chicken ranges by nature-based solutions.
  4. A significant reduction in ‘number of bird’ thresholds for IPUs coming within the permitting jurisdictions of the EA and NRW to be implemented over the next five years on a progressive sliding scale, thus bringing medium and smaller sized IPUs within the scope of environmental regulations.
  5. A requirement for all watercourses within the Wye catchment to be protected by continuous river buffers of a minimum of 10 metres, providing a nature-based separation zone between all agricultural activities and running water.
  6. The allocation of additional funding by the UK and Welsh Governments to the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales to a) conduct inspections of all IPUs and ADs to ensure MMPs and NRMPs are approved and implement, and b) conduct an annual audit to ensure they are adhering to the provisions of their respective MMPs and NRMPs.
  7. Any non-compliance to result in the closure of the IPU or AD in question until compliance is demonstrated and reapproval obtained.

Today’s announcement follows extensive campaigning by River Action since its February 2021 launch for two of the UK’s leading egg and chicken meat producers – Noble Foods and Avara Foods – to take action to reduce the contribution of their supply chains to the pollution of the River Wye. The campaign still awaits clear commitments from both companies. River Action also recently launched a crowdfunder which has raised over £22,000 to support vital citizen science monitoring of pollution on the Wye and its tributaries.

Additionally, River Action has drawn attention on numerous occasions to the complete collapse of environmental protection right across the UK, and its contribution to the continuing pollution scandal. A petition launched by the group in June 2021, calling for a doubling of the environmental protection budgets of the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, has attracted over 55,000 signatures.

 

Charles Watson, Founder and Chairman of River Action said:

“ The River Wye is one of Great Britain’s most iconic rivers. The speed and scale of its environmental collapse is a national scandal, as highlighted in the recent Environmental Audit Committee’s report, and one which is indicative of this country’s total neglect of our freshwater environments. With many now fearing the river has just a few years left before it is irreparably damaged, it is time for all parties to accept that urgent action is needed. While the initiatives of a number of local farmers to reduce phosphate emissions are to be applauded, only a comprehensive catchment-wide plan, backed by uncompromising regulatory enforcement will save the river. ”

James Hitchcock, CEO, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust said:

Despite the fact that even the major poultry producers are now openly accepting their contribution to the pollution of the Wye, there is still no joined-up plan to solve the issues. There is now no time left for further endless talks about voluntary, consensus-led self-regulation. The wildlife of the River Wye is slipping away. A catchment-wide plan involving scientists, land managers, industry leaders and conservationists, and managed by better resourced Welsh and English environmental protection agencies is the only way to save our river. ”

Feargal Sharkey, River Action Advisory Board member  said:

“ I wholeheartedly commend the plan being launched today by River Action. This critically important initiative must be implemented with immediate effect – no ifs, no buts. Quite frankly, it’s a scandal that the actions being put forward today were not implemented by the EA and Natural Resources Wales when the nutrient crisis of the river first manifested itself. ”

 

Read more about the campaign here…

River Action launches call for public help to save iconic river by funding citizen science pollution monitoring

  • Campaigners and environmental NGOs including River Action and the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust are asking the public to help save the UK’s rivers by donating to a vital citizens science project.
  • The citizens science monitoring project, ran by local environmental activists, collects water samples and measure levels and types of pollution along all stretches of the  River Wye and its tributaries, such as the River Lugg.
  • The project is now in need of funding to pay for the equipment used to collect samples and measure pollution levels.

According to research from Natural Resources Wales, over 60% of the River Wye catchment is failing to meet pollution targets. Evidence submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee by Lancaster University’s RePhoKUs project showed that the Wye’s soils are now carrying an unacceptable surplus of three times national average phosphate levels. This is widely seen as the cause of the recent algal blooms which have suffocated river life resulting in the loss of 95% of the rivers ranunculus weed over the last three years. The declining health of our nation’s rivers has also been monitored by citizen scientists who have been carrying out their own research on the water quality of the Wye catchment.

The aim of this work is to collect data that highlights the need for change from Government, local authorities and regulatory agencies to tackle the river pollution crisis. Every single river in England is polluted beyond legal limits and in Wales, only 44% of rivers fail to meet ‘good ecological status’ which campaigners have linked to the budget cuts suffered by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales. As a result, citizen scientists are carrying out their own research to make up for the lack of data being produced by environmental regulators.

The citizen science project working to monitor and collect data in the River Wye and the River Lugg requires vital funding to pay for the equipment used to collect samples and measure pollution levels. River Action has launched a campaign asking for the public to donate money to support the continuation of this project. Money raised will also enable the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust to employ a team member to manage and scale the project. This will allow the Citizen Scientists to reach more of the River Wye’s tributaries and gather more samples to highlight the scale of the river pollution crisis.

 

Charles Watson, Chairman of River Action said:

“Our Citizen Scientists are essentially the front-line troops in the war against the pollution crisis facing our rivers. We are thrilled to be supporting this critical project across the Wye Catchment and urge all our supporters to donate to this crucial research if they are able. It doesn’t matter how small the donation: every £ will make a difference. The data these projects produce is vital to the fight against river pollution, giving us the crucial information needed to show Governments and polluters the shocking extent to which our rivers are dying”.

 

Please support the campaign here.

River Action 2021 Impact Report

Following the completion of River Action’s first year of campaigning, we publish our first Impact Report.

The document assesses River Action’s work during 2021 – both specifically regarding its campaigns relating to the pollution of the River Wye and the re-funding of the UK’s environmental protection agencies. And, more generally with regard to River Action’s contribution to the broader debate on River Pollution in the UK.

Please download the report to find out more:

River Action Impact Report 2021

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